


Pathetic

by LoveMeSomeRafael



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Angst, Barisi - Freeform, But love. Don't forget the love., I said love right?, Love, M/M, Rafael can't live without Sonny, So.Much.Swearing., Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 04:15:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21155459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoveMeSomeRafael/pseuds/LoveMeSomeRafael
Summary: Rafael Barba has been gone for two years following his trial.  He left Sonny Carisi without even saying goodbye.  And Sonny ispissed.  Rafael thought he was doing the right thing.  Now he's back, and he will do anything.Because he can't go one more day without Sonny.A Barisi one-shot.  I made myself cry writing this, listening to Dancing On My Own by Calum Scott.  I love these two.





	Pathetic

He’s been gone over two years now. I’m over him. Actually, he never was who I thought he was, so I guess it would be more accurate to say I’m over my idealized version of him. Of course, I could’ve found him. But I didn’t want to, and clearly he didn’t want to be found. So I let him stay under his rock. I didn’t need what it would do to my life to see him again. Still don’t.

In bad moments - which I hardly ever have anymore, by the way - I ache to tell Rafael what’s happened since he’s been gone. I’d give my eyeteeth to hear what he’d say about my dinky little office and my new suits. I dream of showing him my “ADA Dominick Carisi, Jr.” nameplate. Which makes no sense. Why the hell would I want to hear him read me like he always did? I mean, he threw shade at everyone, but especially me. I don’t know why I put up with it. 

OK, that’s denial. I know I put up with it because I had a thing for him. I had it bad, actually. OK, fine. I was in love with him. And after he – finally – told me he loved me, too, well… After that, he could have chopped me up with a chainsaw and I’d have been happy for his attention. So yeah, I admit I put up with his snarky comments about night school and about every legal observation I ever had because it meant he was thinking about me. Looking at me. Yeah, I realize how pathetic I am. No. How pathetic I _was_. But that was before. Before the trial. Before he just picked up and left without saying goodbye. Sure, he said goodbye to Liv. _Of course_ he said goodbye to Liv. But me - apparently I was just some squeeze he couldn’t be bothered dealing with before he left. Because he knew I’d have tried to make him stay. Because I was pathetic.

I waited a week after Liv said he was leaving. I thought, he can write his own ticket in any firm in town, he’s just trying to decide what to do next and he needs some space. He’d asked me not to be at the trial because he didn’t want me to see him like that, so I figured it was like that. He didn’t want me to see him until he had another job and was back to himself. Which was bullshit, of course – I loved him and he knew that. I thought he was pretty much perfect, even when I knew what he’d done. That took a few talks with Father Kevin, and I’m still praying that God will forgive him. (Yeah, pathetic that I’m still praying for him. You don’t have to tell me.) And _I_ needed _him_, damn it! Anyway, there’s nothing I wouldn’t have done to be there for him at the worst time in his life. I would never, ever have judged him. I would never have abandoned him. Fucking ironic, that.

After a week, I couldn’t stand it anymore. He hadn’t returned any of my calls or texts, and I was really worried about him. I missed him so bad I couldn’t breathe. It was enough already. I started to get pissed. So I went to his apartment, only to find he’d already been gone for two days. No forwarding address. No goodbye. No nothing. 

When I stopped crying (don’t say it), I called his mother, Lucia (again, don’t say it). She said she felt awful about it - and I could tell it was true – but he made her promise not to tell me where he was, or anything about him, except that – get this – he’d left a message for me. He told her that when I called (which he knew I would, eventually, that was part of the message) she should say he was gone and he was fine and he wouldn’t be back and he was sorry. I think me and Lucia both cried a little over that one. 

And now he’s standing right in front of me. He just knocks on my office door and when I say “come in”, having no clue that it would ever be him, he walks in as if he’d never left me. So I guess I got two of my wishes, huh? He’s seen my office and he’s seen my nameplate. For all of two seconds. For the two seconds it’ll take me to throw him back out.

He doesn’t say anything. At least he has the grace to look a little – unsure, I guess I’d call it. Well, if he thought I was the sad sack Barba groupie he left, he’s about to get a surprise.

I don’t stand up. I try not to have any expression on my face. Fuck him. He’s the last person I’m gonna trust with my feelings, even ripshit anger. “What do you want?”

“I wanted to see you.”

He looks good. Well, he always looked good, but he looks good even for him. He’s tan. He’s been somewhere warm. Miami, probably. He has a lot of family there, and it’s always been my guess that’s where he went. He’s wearing slacks – not Dockers, he hates Dockers, these are actually tailored slacks – and a grey blazer that has some green in it that brings out his eyes, the fucker. No tie, a couple buttons undone. I really hate that I can’t help reacting physically to him. You know what I mean. But damn, he looks _really, really_ good. 

But he’s not who I thought he was, and I’m over him, and I do not forgive him for leaving me without a word. 

“I don’t want to see you. Could you do me a favor, and just leave?”

That hurts, I can tell, even though he must have seen it coming. But then again, maybe he didn’t. When have I ever not taken his shit? 

“I’m sorry,” he says. 

“Yeah, I got your message. I really don’t want to see you. Just… go.”

“Sonny, please…”

“Look, I’m not doing this,” I say. So much for him not getting to see my feelings. I’m fairly pissed now. I don’t need this. “I would really like you to leave.”

“Let’s meet somewhere. Just have a drink.”

“Rafael, which part of ‘fuck off’ do you not understand? You’re gone. Stay gone.”

He actually gets tears in his eyes. Barba. Tears. He turns around slowly and walks out, closing the door behind him with a backward glance, like I’m gonna change my mind. Which I’m not. I’m stunned. I can’t even think. I don’t know why my first reaction is overwhelming grief, complete with a few tears of my own, but it is. I want to feel pissed. And I do, some, but mostly I feel like running after him and grabbing him and doing some more of that pathetic Sonny Carisi shit I refuse to do ever again. 

What the fuck is he doing here? What’s he doing in New York, what’s he doing in this building, and what the hell ever made him come to my office? “I wanted to see you.” Fuck that. It’s two years too late, pal. I’m not the pathetic sap you left. OK, maybe I’m wiping a few tears right now, but that’s just… surprise. Anger. Maybe a little humiliation from having been so pathetic. Definitely some left-over grief for the guy I thought you were. But it does not mean I want to see you, or talk to you, or have a drink with you. I want you to go back where you came from. I want you never to have been here.

I can still smell him. That sneaky rat bastard was wearing the cologne _I_ gave him, and if I can still smell it, that means he had too much on. Rafael Barba has never worn too much cologne in his life. _Psychological warfare, Rafael? Really?_ Like you weren’t enough of a mindfuck in general? 

And then he sends me a text. “I just wanted you to have my new number,” he says. No name, like I’m just supposed to _know_ it’s him. Which, of course, I do, which pisses me off even more. He says he’s in town until Thursday. More psychological warfare. He thinks he’s planted a bomb that will now tick until Thursday, and I won’t be able to stand it and I’ll come crawling to him before he leaves again. I delete the text. So much for your bomb, Barba. I am not the same man you left. You do not get to treat me like that and then have me come running like a damn golden retriever the minute you call. Old Sonny, sure. And I’d take that back, if I could. New, post-Rafael Sonny doesn’t play by your rules anymore.

His hair was a little longer. It looked really good.

The next two days are excruciating. I know he’s in town, somewhere, and I think every second he’s gonna just pop in on me again. Every time my phone rings, I get an adrenaline rush. I cannot wait until it’s Friday and he’s gone. I’m sick of thinking about him, and I can’t stop while he’s here in New York. 

I wake up Friday morning and I’m so relieved. He’s gone. I made it. I didn’t go insane with longing and try to find him. So maybe it was hard not to, but I didn’t. I got through him being in town with my dignity intact. And _I_ was the one who threw _him_ out of my life this time. I’m not proud, I don’t feel avenged, I’m just relieved. Relieved that I don’t have to fight the overwhelming desire to see him anymore. 

Liv calls and says the squad’s going out for drinks at six. I don’t have plans, but I don’t want to go, so I say I do. I just need to not think about Barba right now, and I’m sure the squad saw him, and I do not want to hear what they have to say about him right now. I don’t want to know about his new life. I don’t want to know anything about him. In fact, I think I’ll go out tonight. Maybe meet someone. But Liv’s not taking no for an answer. She’s all, “come on, we haven’t all had drinks in a while.” Which is not like her. 

“Liv, I appreciate the invitation, but I have plans. Next time.”

“What are your plans?” She asks. 

What? Why does she care?

“I have a date,” I say, thinking I wish Barba could hear me and stuff _that_ in with his pocket square. 

“Carisi…” Oh, come on! What the hell is this? 

“What’s with the pressure?” I ask. “I’ll go with you next time.”

“Carisi, he needs to see you.”

What. The. Fuck.

“Who does?” Like I don’t know. 

“Barba does. And, apparently, you wouldn’t talk to him when he came to see you. He asked me to help, because he doesn’t want to leave without seeing you.”

“I thought he was leaving yesterday.” I hope I sound as disgusted as I mean to.

“He specifically stayed so he could see you.”

“That’s too bad. Because I have no desire to see him. It’s nice that you’re trying to help him, and I don’t blame you for that. But I have a date and that’s what I’m doing tonight. And it’ll probably last through the weekend, it usually does, so just tell Barba to go back where he came from and leave me alone.” I’m pretty proud of myself for that. I sound pretty convincing. And I must be, because Liv doesn’t respond for several seconds.

“Are you sure?” She asks. She sounds surprised. Yeah, Sonny Carisi might actually have a spine, Liv, even when it comes to Rafael fucking Barba.

“I’m sure. I gotta go.”

We say goodbye and hang up, and damned if I’m not shaking. I don’t know what that’s about, but part of it is, I’m really glad Barba’s gonna get a smackdown from me. I hope it hurts, and I hope he spends his whole flight back to wherever he came from thinking about me in bed all weekend with somebody else. 

But now I can’t concentrate. I’m distracted. What if he tries to come back here? Well, I’m useless for work right now anyway, so I’m just gonna call it a day a few hours early. Maybe I can work from home. For a second I worry that he’ll try to catch me there, but ADAs get paid a little bit better than cops, and I’ve moved since he was here. Even if it would ever occur to him that anything about me might have changed, I don’t think he’d be able to humble himself enough to get my new address from Liv. So I go home. 

I take a shower and put on soft, old jeans and a Henley I’ve had since forever. I do absolutely nothing to my hair. I’ll deal with it later if I go out. I pop a beer and call Theresa. Bella’s too nice for this conversation, and Gina’s in Cabo, probably mistreating bartenders and ogling cabana boys. 

“That no-good, cocky, rotten, heartbreaking, walkaway son of a bitch!” Theresa yells into the phone, which is exactly what I need her to say. We talk for an hour and two beers, and I feel a little better now. My sisters are crazy, but they’re loyal to a fault.

*************

He said no. He looked me right in the eye and told me to fuck off, in so many words. I’ve never seen him look like that, as though he detests me as much as I do. I should have known. I did know. I just hoped somehow his inherent sweetness would have made him listen to me out of politeness, if nothing else. But apparently, even his purebred manners have a limit. I’d say his mother would be ashamed, except that she knows what I did. She’d bake him a damn cake. 

And just now, he refused to see me again. Because he has a date. I thought I couldn’t hurt worse than I did, but that… I wish he would have stabbed me in the heart literally, because this way I have to live through it. But I can’t leave. I can’t not see him. He’s the reason I came back. The reason I had to face everyone knowing what I did. I would’ve turned my back on New York and never returned if it wasn’t for him, and I tried. I tried for _him_, because he deserves better than me. But I couldn’t do it. 

Which is why I’m here now, in front of his door. I have to see him. I have to tell him _why_. I’ll beg if I have to. Shit, I’ll be grateful if he’ll even give me a _chance_ to beg. In front of his date, even. I have no pride left. I have no strength to resist this anymore. It can’t be worse than having to ask Liv to trick him into seeing me. And getting turned down in front of her. 

I can hear his voice, although I can’t hear what he’s saying. Terrific. I’ll be begging him to listen to me in front of his date. _Que así sea_.[1] He stops talking and I can only imagine what they’re doing. Which may be the one thing that could’ve given me the balls to knock. I want so badly to hide from the peephole. I’m imagining him refusing to come out and me refusing to leave like some sort of pathetic, lovesick hostage situation.

He sees me. There’s silence for what feels like a year. It’s obvious he’s not going to answer the door. But there’s still a shadow under the door. What the hell kind of place is he living in that there’s a crack between the- For fuck’s sake. I really am a malcontent. And he’s unlocking the door. Shit. _Dios, dame fuerzas_.[2]

He’s wearing old jeans and his hair is flopping over his forehead. I have never seen a more beautiful man. Even Sonny, the most beautiful man in the world, never looked this good. I am in hell. From the word go, I am being punished for what I did, and it hasn’t even begun. 

He doesn’t say anything. That, above anything else, tells me how he feels about me. My garrulous love, whom I’ve told to shut up a thousand times, has not one word for me. 

“Please listen to me. Five minutes.” 

“No.”

That’s it. That’s the one syllable I’m worth to him now. He looks so cold! I’ve never seen him cold. This isn’t going to work, is it? He still has all the power, only now he knows it. No, I think he always knew it – how could he not? But now he wants to use it to crush me. Like I probably crushed him. Like I deserve. 

“Sonny, please. I’m saying please here. I can’t imagine what you must think of me, but you always did treat me better than I deserve. Do it one more time?” I hate the little break in my voice, which I am positive he heard, but I _am_ begging, after all, so what the hell. 

Another hour and a half goes by while he just stands there, gorgeous and icy and absolutely silent. Silent as I would never have believed Sonny Carisi could be. 

“No,” he says again, and goes to shut the door. 

Oh, for fuck’s sake. I said I was willing to beg. Now it appears I’m going to have to get physical, too. Besides not being my strong suit, we both know who could kick whose ass in this relationship, and while I’m sure he would relish the opportunity, and I would relish the physical contact, I don’t think it would further my cause. I shove my foot in front of the door anyway. Thank God I’m wearing walking shoes and not soft, hand-tooled loafers right now. 

That at least broke the icy surface. He’s genuinely surprised. That makes two of us. 

“Sonny, I’ve got to talk to you. I’ve got to explain. You don’t have to say a word. Just listen for five minutes. That’s all. Just hear me out and you’ll never have to see me again. But until then, I’m afraid I’m just going to have to keep making an ass out of myself. Which I’m willing to do, but it’s probably going to get old for you.”

************

Fuck. Why’d he have to say that? And why’s it have to _feel_ like this to hear that self-deprecating way he used to talk to me sometimes? When he’d talk about how good looking he thought I was compared to him? Psychological fucking warfare, and he probably doesn’t even know he’s doing it. Damn him. 

But he’s not going to have it all his own way. I step out into the hallway and close the door behind me. He is not coming in. Five minutes, and then I never have to see him again. I just look at him, because what am I supposed to say? “Yeah, I’m still a sucker for you and I want you like you wouldn’t believe even after the way you treated me because I’m fucking pathetic?” Actually, it wouldn’t make any difference if I did say it. He knows anyway. That’s why he’s here. Because he knows that he still has all the power.

He winces when I close the door. Good. 

“Sonny, I will never be able to tell you how sorry I am for not seeing you before I left. I apologize. It was wrong and cruel. And I can’t live with myself unless I try to explain.”

Don’t bother stopping, Barba. I’m not gonna tell you it’s OK. It’s not.

“The bottom line is, I couldn’t face you. I knew how you’d feel about what I’d done - you may be more devout, but I’m still Catholic. I could face everyone else, I could take anything Stone had to say about me, I was ready to be condemned by a jury. But not you. Not you. And I did what I did. I was going to prison. The idea of you visiting me in prison… I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stand it. And I knew what you’d say. You’re… you. You’d have tried to stand by me. And I’m the weakest, most cowardly man in the world, who loves you beyond all reason, and if I’d had to try to leave you in person, I couldn’t have done it.”

Give the guy one thing, he knows how to sell it. Tears, choking up, the whole works. But he’s a master, right? Been doing it in front of juries forever. 

“Well, you didn’t go to jail, did you? So… nice try, I guess.” I turn and go back into my apartment. 

It actually _was_ a nice try. With two years to think about it - and the guy’s brilliant, remember – I wouldn’t have expected anything less. But I don’t believe a word of it.

**************

I could just let him close the door on me. I’ve said what I came to say. But I can’t. I just… can’t.

So I put my foot in the door, again, and push it open. He’s so surprised that I get past him before he can slam the door in my face. I’ve used that one a time or two, but I never thought I’d be using it to get the man I love to tolerate my odious presence. Proof, as if I needed it, that I really do have no pride left. Especially when his hair is messy like that and he looks so sad and oh, angrier than I could ever have imagined _mi dulce amor_[3]could ever be. I’m actually encouraged by that. It means I can get to him. It means he has feelings – OK, hatred and fury, but feelings nonetheless – for me. 

“I love you,” I say, because I don’t have anything else. 

Oh, good. We’re back to stony silence again. At least he’s not in the kitchen choosing a knife, and he’s not bodily tossing me out into the hallway. He’s just standing there, not saying he loves me back. Not saying anything.

“That’s why I had to tell you why. Because I love you, and I hurt you, and God help me, I just need to hear your voice right now. Scream at me. Call me all the names I call myself whenever I think about you, which is all the time. Just… please. Say something.”

“Do you want a beer? It’s all I have.”

*************

I don’t know why I said that. I guess because he’s inside now. What am I gonna do, pick him up and throw him out? Never happen. I get my arms around him, I’m not gonna be doing anything remotely like that. 

What am I supposed to do now? What _the hell_ am I supposed to do now? 

I never drank scotch after he left. Couldn’t. Sappy, I know. _I know_. And I should toss him out on his can, I know that, too. I should tell him to fuck all the way off, but instead, what do I say? I ask if he wants a beer. Which he doesn’t. He hates beer. 

“Yes, please.” 

_Yes, please_? Not only does Barba hate beer, he has never, ever, been that polite in his life. And here I am, going into the fridge to get him a beer. 

He said he loves me. He said it more than once, and not in the past tense. Holy hell, Rafael, what the _fuck_ am I supposed to do with that? 

I turn around and Rafael Barba is standing in my living room, wearing jeans and a sweater, when he knows that’s my kryptonite. Psychological fucking warfare. I hand him a beer and slump down on my couch. I refuse to look at him in that sweater, damn him, because it fucking _hurts_. Everything about this moment hurts. Which, I guess, is why we both have tears in our eyes. 

“What do you want from me, Rafael?” 

“I want… you, Sonny. I want you. I want you to tell me that you’ll let me apologize and earn back your trust, and maybe someday you might be able to love me again. Because, Sonny, I can’t stand being away from you. I can’t. It’s been killing me for two years and I just got on a plane the other day because I can’t breathe without you and there is nothing I won’t do for you. Nothing. And that’s as honest as I know how to be.”

*************

_That_ got him to look at me. It’s a look of intense hatred, sure, but he’s looking at me with strong emotion, and that’s a start. I’ll take anything at this point. 

“Fuck you.” He spits that at me, which is fair.

“I know. And you’re right. But here I am.”

“I don’t want you to be here. I don’t want you to tell me you love me. I don’t want anything from you. Why would I?”

“I don’t know, Sonny. I don’t know why you would. You’re the best man I know, and I’m nowhere near worthy of you. And I ran away and let you think… I don’t even know what you thought. But I love you, and I’ve tried for two years to stay away, and now I know I can’t live without you.”

“You wanna know what I thought, Rafael? I thought I was the only one in love. I thought you lied to me. I thought I was a disposable fuck to the man I loved. That’s what I thought. And you let me. So I say again, fuck you. Get out.”

Now he’s standing up. Fuck, he’s pissed. His voice is like ice. Dry ice. He’s also crying. Why shouldn’t he be? I am.

“My love, I’m so sorry…” I can’t help it. I can’t stand his tears. I reach out for him and try to go to him.

“Don’t you fucking try to touch me!” He moves away from me. He’s so beautiful! Even though he’s looking at me like I’ve got fulminating spongiform encephalopathy. Several kinds. 

“Sonny, I love you. I love you, and I am so sorry…”

“Yeah, I heard ya’ the first time. Didn’t care then, and I don’t care now. You think you get to just decide you love me and I’m going to be your lapdog again? I probably would have, before. But I’m not quite as much of a fool as I used to be. You did that much for me. Grew me up a little, I guess. I don’t trust as easy as I used to, and I sure the fuck don’t trust _you_. So-“

“I know. Fuck me. I got it.”

“Then why aren’t you leaving?”

“Because, Sonny. I _can’t_. I love you. I can’t live without you.”

He collapses onto the couch again, like he can’t believe I could possibly be serious. No. That’s wrong. Like he wouldn’t have believed it, but now that I’m here, he _does_. I go to sit on the couch, too. Not next to him, I’m not that much of an idiot, but on the same couch, anyway. And he lets me, for about ten seconds. 

************

He sits next to me on the couch, like he hasn’t heard a word I said. Which would be typical for us. He’s never had any regard for what I say. I may actually have to leave my own apartment to get rid of this guy. I’m not sure what to say when “fuck you” and “get out” don’t work. 

Plus he’s crying. I’ve seen Barba cry like twice, and neither time was like this. He was much more secretive and embarrassed about it, and both times, he denied it. Right now, he’s got tears rolling down his cheeks and he doesn’t have a lot of control over his voice. I guess I’m crying a little, too, but he’s seen me cry plenty of times. 

I have absolutely no idea what to do. So I just sit here, and drink beer, and sit next to Barba. Believe me, I’m thinking about what he said. There was a time when I woulda done anything to hear him say this stuff. But that was before. Before he stayed away for two fucking years without one word. Before I knew the kind of pain he was capable of inflicting on me. Which makes me think of something my Ma says, something about those you love the most can hurt you the worst. That’s just part of the deal. 

I don’t accept that. Those you love the most _can_ hurt you the worst, but usually they _don’t_. Barba _does_.

I don’t know why I let him take my hand. I have no earthly idea. I don’t want him to. I want to fling his hand in his handsome fucking tear-streaked face. But I don’t. I don’t hold his hand back, but I let him hold mine. 

And that’s when I lose it. 

I don’t know why. I’ll never know why. I just start to bawl like Jessie and Billie with diaper rash. I bawl so hard I can’t breathe, and I’m choking and Rafael’s holding me. And I’m letting him. And he’s bawling, too. He’s saying he’s sorry, and he loves me, and he’s pulling my head onto his shoulder. I’m turning into his neck and smelling him and putting my arms around him, too. And he feels like everything I’ve ever wanted. Because he is. Damn it, he is. This shady Cuban smartass who can make my knees weak just with a look and who broke the shit out of my heart, and - idiot me - he’s the only man I will ever love.

*************

I wish there were more ways to say “I love you” in English. I know Sonny doesn’t speak Spanish, but I also know he seems to understand it. And Spanish is far superior for apologizing and pouring out your love to the man you can’t live without. So as I try to assimilate the fact that he’s letting me hold him, I just keep telling him how I feel, and how sorry I am, in English and Spanish and sometimes some bastardized conglomeration of the two. Because the words don’t matter. I’m not going to get him back with words. I’m going to get him back by returning to New York and treating him the way he deserves to be treated, and trying my damnedest to be good enough for him, even though I’m not and I never have been. 

************

He says he’s sorry. He says he can’t live without me. He says he loves me and he’ll spend the rest of his life proving that to me. He wants to marry me. I’m not going there anytime soon. But I do appear to be letting him kiss me blind. And although Rafael in sweaters is my kryptonite, I’m dragging it off of him because I’m letting him do other stuff to me and if this continues, he’s gonna need to be naked. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still very, very pissed at him. And he hurt me worse than anyone ever has. But my Ma says the ones you love the most can hurt you the worst. And Rafael says he’s gonna prove to me he’s worthy of me. And, between you and me, he seems to be just as pathetic about me as I am about him. So we’ll see.

[1] So be it.

[2] God, give me strength.

[3] My sweet love/darling


End file.
